Isabel Gotzkowsky and Friends (IGaF) is a New York City-based modern dance company founded in 1998 by Artistic Director Isabel Gotzkowsky. IGaF maintains an active schedule of performances and educational programs that use movement to facilitate the exploration of human nature and emotion. Each of its dances embarks on a storyline, yet the narration is imbued with abstract imagery, athletic movement and subtle gestures.

Since the inception of IGaF, Isabel has choreographed over 30 dances; 15 of which are in the company’s repertory. These works include solos, duets and group pieces that can be performed in a variety of venues. IGaF has collaborated with a diverse group of composers, musicians, costume designers, visual artists and lighting designers to create these works.

To date, IGaF has presented three New York City seasons at Joyce SoHo (1998, 2000, 2005), as well as New York City seasons at the Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University (2001), where Isabel was selected as a sponsored artist, at The Theatre of The Riverside Church (2003), at The Kitchen (2004) and at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (2009). IGaF co-produced a five-evening run at the Williamsburg Art neXus in Brooklyn, NY and a nine-evening run as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival in Toronto, Canada, both in 2003. In April 2005, IGaF was presented by the 92nd Street Y for a Sundays@Three performance.

In addition to presenting full-evening productions, IGaF has participated in a variety of showcases and festivals both nationally and internationally, including the remember project at Danspace Project, the Downtown Dance Festival, the Battery Dance Festival, Gene Pool at Dance New Amsterdam, the Symphony Space Dance Sampler, Wave Rising Festival (all in New York City), Artfix (San Francisco), the fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists (Toronto, Canada), the Emporada Internacional De Danza Contemporanea (Mexico City, Mexico) and for three consecutive years the International Choreography Competition, (Hannover, Germany). Isabel was one of 33 renowned international choreographers invited to create a short solo for “Mayim – Mayim: Minatures of Remembrance” in Fuerth, Germany with performances in November and December 2007. In April of 2008 IGaF was featured during a one-day conference, “Women and War: A New Reality” at The United Nations.

In 2001, IGaF was awarded a company residency at The Yard in Chilmark, MA, and in 2004 Isabel was awarded an artist residency at the White Oak Plantation in Yulee, FL.

Isabel and company members are actively involved in dance education. They have taught at dance schools and university dance departments in North America and Europe and have conducted workshops and master classes in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Canada, Germany, Poland and in Switzerland, where Isabel has been a resident artist/faculty member at Danceloft (Rorschach) since 1996. In September 2006 the company was in residency at James Madison University in Virginia where they taught classes and created a new work for the Virginia Repertory Company. Currently Isabel serves on the faculties at Dance New Amsterdam in New York and as a visiting guest artist at Iwanson Dance Center in Munich, Germany.